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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Google led me to little information about Gutierrez. But in addition to being PBR's #9 player in the state of Michigan for 2013, Michigan Baseball Prospects has Gutierrez ranked #7 in their 2013 rankings. So along with Jackson Lamb, this is the second top-10 in-state player that Erik Bakich has landed in the short time since his hiring.

Original caption: Detroit Western Cowboys sophomore pitcher Hector Gutierrez tries to close out the 5th inning during the quarterfinal MHSAA baseball championship game in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, June 14, 2011. Photo source.

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How many slots is Bakich going to fill...I feel there have been more baseball commits in the last month or two than what I remember from the rest of the time I have been on this site. No complaining...just in awe

I should have thought to look through the older posts under that tag--then I would have seen your Hello posts.

Your coverage of Michigan baseball is sorely missed here. I don't know nearly enough about college baseball, and especially the recruiting side, to replicate what you provided. I think there's increased interest in the Michigan team with the hiring of Bakich, so perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me will eventually step forward and fill the void.

Is this unusual? I played baseball and am a huge fan of MLB, but I sadly know nothing about college baseball recruiting. Is there a good post on this site or another resource someone can recommend for a newbie? I don't know # of scholarships, usual class size, good recruit rating sites, etc. I'm sure I could find the info, but I'm lazy and I'm sure some industrious MGoBlogger has already done the work.

Each D1 school gets to use only 11.7 scholarships, and not every player gets a full scholarship. Here's a brief summary from a sports scholarship site:

Baseball is what they call an equivalency sport. This means that colleges only have a limited number of scholarships to divide up between the entire roster. For instance, a NCAA DI coach has 11.7 total scholarships and can divide those up any way he wants, perhaps giving half scholarships to virtually every player or giving full rides to just a select number of players, usually pitchers, catchers or power hitters.

I'm not sure there is a "usual" class size, but Michigan's 2012 class had 10 players on it (later reduced to 9 when Kevin Ross went pro). Gutierrez is the 8th Michigan commit for 2013.

A kid on my highschool baseball team consistently pumped 88-92 from the mound and received a 75ish% scholarship from MSU.... but then he decided to smoke weed all day every day and skip school before having an incomplete/very mediocre senior season that resulted in a loss of scholarship and him hardly graduating...

But, that aside... he was a big time prospect, and we regularly had college coaches and even MLB scouts at our games, and he didnt even get a full ride

Because coaches have to optimize thier alloted 11.7 (odd figure) scholarships effectively they frequently break them up into partials. Anything over 50% is considered pretty good. I currently coach a kid who throws 86-89 with a nasty slider and he's heading to the Big 12 to pitch for WVU on a 68% scholarship, which is fantastic.

translate nationally? I assume most talent comes from the sunshiny states. Brooks wrote a great primer on lacrosse recruiting - I think we'd all appreciate it if someone has the knowledge/time/inclination to do the same for baseball.

But I'd be willing to bet that #9 in Michigan would not break the top 500 nationally. There are so many other areas that are considered hotbeds for baseball talent, so a state like California probably has a solid 50 players that would be ranked higher than the 9th ranked prospect in Michigan...and that might be a conservative estimation

But how many of those top 500 players will ever play college baseball? Most of the top recruits are drafted and sign pro contracts. So, a national ranking of baseball players has to be looked at much differently than the rankings in football or basketball, where every player attends college.

Which is probably why you don't see very many (any) national baseball recruiting websites. PBR has absolutely burst onto the scene in the last 9 months and turned into a valuable tool for players and college coaches. One of my players was a junior last year and didn't have much exposure recruiting-wise until he went to one of Prep Baseball's showcases. When he was there he performed very well and one of the directors personally sent emails to several big programs with his information. Within 2 weeks he had received over 30 emails and phone calls from college coaches inquiring about his plans.

Its not that our staff failed to help him with recruiting, but coaches get tons of emails from high school coaches saying, "hey, come check out this kid, hes great." When a coach hears from someone who evaluates talent and coaches an elite travel program they're more likely to listen.

Our staff actually went to the University of Toledo for a practice and spoke with their recruiting coordinator who specifically asked about the previously mentioned player. He basically said that he had never heard of him until his PBR profile came out, but they were interested in recruiting him. At that point it was too late for a local school like UT because our kid had been in so much contact with coaches from bigger programs.

It is a good point because my old hs won the D1 state title the year after i graduated, and we had 3 or 4 kids ranked in the top 25 on our team and a couple in the top 10, and 1 went to michigan, and the other only pitched in D3 ball.. So being highly ranked in the state doesn't mean these players are elite by any means

I did a bit more digging and found a brief profile of Gutierrez at the Detroit Arsenal RBI site. Says he's 6-0, 175 lbs. and throws a 91-mph fastball. There are several links there to YouTube videos featuring Gutierrez. A bit further down the page is a profile of another recent Michigan commit, Johnny Slater.